Jaitley began his speech by saying that today is the auspicious day of Basant Panjami and that "spring is the season of optimism".
Major focus will be on adequately funding existing schemes to ensure their timely completion before the next General Elections.
Tamil Nadu's latest budget offers path-breaking initiatives and major boost for social infrastructure, which other state governments are sure to follow in the coming years, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Education remains one of the key focuses of the new government.
The NIA, which came into existence in February this year with the appointment of Radha Vinod Raju as its first director general, has to accomplish important tasks in next 100 days.
Money will be earmarked for the social sector - especially rural districts that house three-fifths of voters
The Finance Minsiter says country requires 'a larger opening out in more sectors, stability of policy and tax regime'
Finance Minister P Chidambaram set apart Rs 45.50 crore for its preparations.
Describing the DAD as the "guardian of defence finance", he emphasised the need to bolster the internal vigilance mechanism so that any suspicious activity can be detected and reviewed immediately.
Amid reports that the government plans to reach out to Congress for passage of crucial bills, senior leader Ahmed Patel on Friday said it would be "bizarre" for the Narendra Modi dispensation to expect support from the party after it has diluted UPA's policies and programmes.
Expressing determination to eliminate "all delays" in modernisation of the armed forces, the government on Thursday hiked the defence budget by a whopping 23 per cent to Rs 77,000 crore as against the revised estimates of Rs 63,000 crore.
Budget fails to cheer realty players.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the fiscal deficit slippage this financial year (2017-18) was largely statistical.
Employment generation in the midst of a global meltdown will be the central idea of the Interim Budget that the United Progressive Alliance will present on February 16, just ahead of the general elections.
The government will have to get projects moving.
Opposition calls the Budget 'hollow and plain'.
We feel this Budget needs to focus on the domestic IT market in terms of increasing the profitability of service providers as well as giving incentive to industry for investing in IT.
Take a look at what economists and analysts have to say about this budget.
All banks are eligible for privatisation. A committee of secretaries will decide which banks will be privatised, says Financial Services Secretary Debasish Panda.
The service conditions and judges' remuneration are not alluring .
The railways has spent more than Rs 1 lakh crore on safety measures between 2017-2018 and 2021-22 with a steady growth in expenditure on track renewal, according to an official document.
A soft, tax-free Budget for 2003-04 with a net deficit of Rs 13.74 crore (Rs 137 million) and a total outlay of Rs 43,480 crore (Rs 434.8 billion) was presented by Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Y Ramakrishnudu in the state assembly on Saturday.\n\n\n\n
The Budget for 2018-19 has at least five takeaways that are yet to receive adequate attention, says A K Bhattacharya.
The Railway Budget will be presented on February 25 while the Union Budget will be presented on February 29.
'If anything, he is a fiscal hawk.' 'He has avoided fiscal profligacy completely for the past four years.' 'The fiscal deficits since 2014 are clear proof of this.' 'The point is not that it is not 3 per cent yet; it is that it is not 6, 7 or 8 per cent, which it could easily have been.' 'For this he needs to be congratulated.' 'He has recognised it no longer pays to spend other people's money to win elections,' points out T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Youngsters must remember education is their BIGGEST investment EVER: Their lifelong income-earning provider! asserts CA P V Subramanyam.
Though not a blockbuster budget it does not undermine the fact that key issues were addressed and the finance minister certainly did not under-deliver, says Vatsal Srivastava.
The total allocation for the road sector has been Rs 97,000 crore.
Rs 111,294 crore has been allocated for army salaries. The Rs 113,278 crore allocated for army pensions surpasses that. Army planners are worried about this drain on funds that could otherwise go towards equipment modernisation.
'Our concern is about today and there is nothing in the Budget for the MSME sector to feel positive right now.'
The health ministry may face budget cut.
The ministry has also been allocated funds for Lok Sabha polls and photo identity cards for voters.
"What would be your advice for investors?" 'Keep it simple. Don't panic.'
The Indian Army guards the Line of Actual Control -- India's border with China -- along with the ITBP.
The Centre on Monday earmarked a separate Rs 2,217 crore for 42 urban centres to tackle air pollution and announced the much-awaited voluntary vehicle scrapping policy to phase out old and polluting vehicles, even as it shrunk the budgetary allocation for the environment ministry from the last fiscal by nearly eight percent. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her budget speech for 2021-22, announced a total of Rs 2869.93 crore for the ministry, Rs 230 crore less than the last fiscal. Officials said the outlay has been lesser this time as the economy is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The government on Monday earmarked a substantial amount to the Urban Development Ministry for spending on extension of Metro networks in Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai in the Budget 2011-12.
The Maharashtra government on Friday told the Bombay high court that the state-run hospitals in Nanded and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar which recently saw a spurt in patient deaths faced a heavy inflow of extremely critical patients from private hospitals.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's idea of cooperative federalism is expected to be on display in the 2015-16 Budget.
Moody's Investors Service on Thursday slashed India's economic growth projection to 8.8 per cent for 2022 from 9.1 per cent earlier, citing high inflation. In its update to Global Macro Outlook 2022-23, Moody's said high-frequency data suggests that the growth momentum from December quarter 2021 carried through into the first four months this year. However, the rise in crude oil, food and fertilizer prices will weigh on household finances and spending in the months ahead.
The richest one per cent in India now own more than 40 per cent of the country's total wealth, while the bottom half of the population together share just 3 per cent of wealth, a new study showed on Monday.
